Posts Tagged 'slow cooker'

I had a stab at cooking baked beans in the slow cooker again today, the result was ok but not amazing. I think I have being trying my hand at recipes now that when I go wayward and start making up my own stuff, just being ‘ok’ isnt enough.

The background recipe for this one came from Craig Flinn’s recipe in his book “Fresh & Local“, which I have made before, but this time I mixed it up a bit. For example where the recipe calls for smoked ham hocks, I only had plain ham hocks so to give it a little kick and a bit of a different flavour I added some adobo chillies. It now has plenty of kick but not really much in the way of depth of flavour.

I think that the real problem for me, plenty spice but not enough depth. At least the cornbread is good…….

Tomorrow I am sticking with the slow cooker but trying my hand at a lamb curry, I’ll let you know how it goes.

It may still be warm outside, but it definitely doesn’t feel like summer, so its time to bring out the slow cooker. I’ve already decided that this year I want to try and do more with the slow cooker than just repeatedly making beef casseroles, and first up for a try was a lamb shank recipe. This takes around 20 minutes prep time, 4.5 hrs in the slow cooker and serves 4.

For this you’ll need;

1 carrot (finely diced)

1 leek (finely diced)

1 onion (finely diced)

2 celery stalks (finely diced)

4 lamb shanks

3 cloves of garlic

4 sprigs of rosemary

4 slices of prosciutto

60g of tomato paste (1/4 cup)

500ml of beef stock (2 cups)

250ml red wine (1cup)

90g olives (1/2 cup)

Handful of chopped parsley (to throw on at the end)

First finely dice all your veg up and place in the bottom of the slow cooker

Then cut 3 or 4 little slits into the meaty part of each lamb shank and insert some of the sliced garlic

Place a sprig of rosemary on each of the shanks and wrap with a slice of prosciutto, securing with a couple of toothpicks

Add the tomato paste, stock and wine, and a good pinch of salt (leave pepper till later in the cooking)

Put on ‘High’ for 4.5 hrs

About 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time add the sliced olives and the parsley, then serve with your side of choice, and enjoy.

Here is a photo of my version, it doesn’t have the olives as my other half isn’t keen on them so I left them out for her sake. I served mine with a side of turmeric mashed potato which looked neon in the kitchen lights!

I’ve been crazy busy this week and partly because of this I decided to try a slow cooker pulled pork recipe. I prepared everything on Thursday night and left it cooking all day Friday while I was at work. It had been my intention was to take some pics and make it a photoblog/recipe post but I was knackered and just wanted to get it done on Thursday, and last night I just wanted to munch rather than get artsy with the finished results.

The recipe I followed was taken from metronews.ca and is below, its pretty good, a lot spicier than any other pulled pork recipes I have made, but tasted good bundled into buns with a side of broccoli coleslaw I made to go with. I have just finished making pizza bases from scratch (first time) next onto the pizza sauce and then the left over pulled pork will be the topping along with a healthy (or is that unhealthy) amount of cheese.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

500 ml (2 cups) thinly sliced onions

1.5 kg (3 lb) pork loin roast

500 ml (2 cups) chopped, peeled apples

8 large onion buns

Sauce

1 bottle (455 ml) chili sauce

75 ml (1/3 cup) each grainy mustard and liquid honey

30 ml (2 tbsp) chili powder

30 ml (2 tbsp) each tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce

15 ml (1 tbsp) packed brown sugar

5 ml (1 tsp) smoked paprika (or 10 ml/2 tsp regular paprika)

2 cloves garlic, minced

Place onions on bottom of slow cooker. Place pork on top. Sprinkle apples over top and down sides.

Sauce: In a large bowl, mix together chili sauce, mustard, honey, chili powder, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, paprika and garlic; pour over meat and apples. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours or until meat is fall-apart tender.

Remove roast to large plate. Using 2 forks in opposite directions, shred meat along its length. Stir meat back into sauce and serve on buns.

Across at another blog I stumbled across a recipe for slow roast leg of lamb with garlic, lemon and rosemary served with lemon potatoes with garlic and oregano. The blog in question is Dinner with Julie and having put together one of the recipes from the blog I know it wont be my last.

Originally I was going to do a bit of a photo blog entry and it was going well with some good pictures being taken of the early stages, but in the end I was too hungry in the final moments and took no pictures. I just stuffed my face, it was great.